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This procedure, if approved, will entail a distinction
between psychic and bodily qualities, the latter belonging
specifically to body.
If we decide to refer all souls to the higher, we are still at
liberty to perform for Sensible qualities a division founded upon
the senses themselves- the eyes, the ears, touch, taste, smell;
and if we are to look for further differences, colours may be
subdivided according to varieties of vision, sounds according to
varieties of hearing, and so with the other senses: sounds may
also be classified qualitatively as sweet, harsh, soft.
Here a difficulty may be raised: we divide the varieties of
Substance and their functions and activities, fair or foul or
indeed of any kind whatsoever, on the basis of Quality, Quantity
rarely, if ever, entering into the differences which produce
species; Quantity, again, we divide in accordance with qualities
of its own: how then are we to divide Quality itself into
species? what differences are we to employ, and from what genus
shall we take them? To take them from Quality itself would be no
less absurd than setting up substances as differences of
substances.
How, then, are we to distinguish black from white? how
differentiate colours in general from tastes and tangible
qualities? By the variety of sense-organs? Then there will be no
difference in the objects themselves.
But, waiving this objection, how deal with qualities perceived by
the same sense-organ? We may be told that some colours integrate,
others disintegrate the vision, that some tastes integrate,
others disintegrate the tongue: we reply that, first, it is the
actual experiences [of colour and taste, and not the
sense-organs] that we are discussing and it is to these that the
notions of integration and disintegration must be applied;
secondly, a means of differentiating these experiences has not
been offered.
It may be suggested that we divide them by their powers, and this
suggestion is so far reasonable that we may well agree to divide
the non-sensuous qualities, the sciences for example, on this
basis; but we see no reason for resorting to their effects for
the division of qualities sensuous. Even if we divide the
sciences by their powers, founding our division of their
processes upon the faculties of the mind, we can only grasp their
differences in a rational manner if we look not only to their
subject-matter but also to their Reason-Principles.
But, granted that we may divide the arts by their
Reason-Principles and theorems, this method will hardly apply to
embodied qualities. Even in the arts themselves an explanation
would be required for the differences between the
Reason-Principles themselves. Besides, we have no difficulty in
seeing that white differs from black; to account for this
difference is the purpose of our enquiry.
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